In all industries involving equipment where electrical signals, power, fluids, air, actuation or other substance or energy transference is required, so are wires, cables, hoses, tubing, flexible actuators and like materials and devices required. In many of these applications it is desirable to bundle these materials together or to apply a protective outer surface or to apply a decorative surface as shown in FIG. 1. For instance, management of multiple wires or cables, protection against abrasion or temperature on a single hose, to facilitate efficient installation where these items would otherwise have to be installed one at a time and many other reasons. A cable harness in an automobile is an excellent example of this use. One common method of bundling these materials together is to apply a braided, expandable, flexible sleeve, often referred to as expando or flexo sleeving although other materials can be used such as shrinkable tubing.
The nature of the braided sleeving arrangement is such that when the tube is compressed axially, the diameter of the sleeve expands proportionally. This expanding property allows the braided sleeve to be applied over materials such as cable and cable bundles, hoses and bundles of hoses and other like materials.
Currently, the most common method of applying braided expandable flexible sleeving to a cable, or cable bundle is to manually compress the sleeving by hand, insert the cable or cable bundle into the expanded end, and slide the sleeving over the cable or cable bundle. As mentioned above, as the flexible sleeving is axial compressed, the diameter of the sleeving increases proportionally. This process is repeated over and over until the cable or cable bundle is fully encased in the sleeving. This technique is satisfactory for short lengths of cable and cable that has some degree of stiffness to it. However when using this technique to apply sleeving to long lengths of cable or to cable that is very limp in nature, such as cables that use very low durometer insulation and jacketing materials, the application becomes problematic and in some instances close to impossible. This is especially true when you combine the long length and limp cable characteristics and is exacerbated Per when multiples of long length, limp cables are to be bundled together.
A further complication is the ratio of the diameter of the cable or cable bundle to the nominal diameter of the sleeving. The closer the ratio is to one, the harder it is to apply. Conversely, the closer the final ratio is to one, the tighter or smoother the final assembly is. This tight fit is desirable in many instances such as when appearance is important or when the cable or cable bundle must be pulled through walls or equipment without getting caught on other devices or equipment. So the two factors work against each other. The best appearing, easiest to run assembly is the hardest to make.
Another difficulty in applying long lengths of sleeving to long lengths of cable is space. Because applying sleeving in the traditional method is essentially the same as sliding it onto the cable in the same way a knife is slid into a sheath, the space required would be equal to the final length needed. For instance, if you desire to bundle one hundred feet of cable, you would need a one hundred foot straight line in order to apply the sleeving effectively. Applying sleeving in the traditional method is also very time consuming due the fact that only a small amount of the sleeving can be compressed at any one time.
Alternatively, there are machines that directly braid the sleeve onto the bundle; however, these machines are very costly and are not portable since they are large, fixed machines. In addition, this type of machine requires highly skilled personnel to run them and all of the final configurations of cable combinations must be set at the time of braiding. This method of directly braiding onto the bundle requires large minimum quantities, which affects the supplier's flexibility to the customer's application and detrimentally lowers delivery response time. This is unsatisfactory since flexibility and response time are required in today's marketplace.
Consequently, there is an unfilled need in all industries that employ these types of sleeving for a means to cost-effectively, efficiently, easily and reliably apply sleeving to a wide variety of materials such as cable.